Now I lay me down to sleep
I pray my sanity to keep.
For if some peace I do not find,
I’m pretty sure I’ll lose my mind.
I pray I find a little quiet
Far from the family riot.

May I lie back ---not have to think
About what they’re stuffing down the sink,
Or who they’re with, or what they’re at
And what they’re doing to the cat.

I pray for time all time to myself.
{Did something just fall off a shelf?}

To cuddle in my nice, soft bed
{Oh no, another goldfish—dead!}

Some silent moments for goodness sake
{Did I just hear a window break?”

And that I need not cook or clean—
{Well heck, I’ve got the right to dream}

Yes now I lay me down to sleep,
I pray my wits about me keep,
But as I look around I know—
I must have lost them long ago!

Life With Mom by unknown copy write unknown

1 year: mama
4 years, I want my mama
7 years, I need to ask my mommy first
12 years, my mother, is so uncool
21 years, mom is so out of touch-what would you expect?
30 years, a little patience…maybe mom will have a good idea.
35 years, I’ll call mom and see what she thinks about it. Mom is really a lot of help.
40 years, maybe mom and I could do that together
50 years, I wonder what mom would have thought about it.
60 years, I wish I could talk it over with mom once more.

Dark Angel by unknown copy write unknown

Emerald eyes stare out from an ivory face
How could it be that death has such beauty?
A demon with an angel’s face
No angel with an angel’s face
Swift and merciful, an angel of death
A dark angel.

Hair black as the sky always is
Night falls again as you awake
All colours have meaning
But the sky will never be blue again
The sun call like a seductress
Asking you to join her for one last dance
But don’t listen
The moon is your lover, and blue eyes would weep
Even if you didn’t know or care.

The night is calling to the beautiful one
The dark angel
Night will fall again.

Dover Beach by Mathew Arnold copy write 1822-88

The sea is calm tonight.
The tide is full, the moon lies fair
Upon the straights-on the French coast the light
Gleams and is gone; the cliffs of England stand,
Glimmering and vast, out in the tranquil bay.
Come to the window, sweet is the night air!
Only from the long line of spray
Where the sea meets the moon-blanch’d land,
Listen! You hear the grating roar
Of pebbles which the waves draw back, and fling,
At their return, up the high strand
Begin, and cease, and then again begin
With tremulous cadence slow, and bring
The eternal note of sadness in.

Sophocles long ago
Heard it on the Aegean, and it brought
Into his mind the turbid ebb, and flow
Of human misery; we
Find also in the sound a thought.
Hearing it by this distance northern sea.

The sea of faith
Was once; too, at the full, and round earth’s shore
Lady like the folds of a bright girdle furl’d
But now I only hear
It’s melancholy, long, withdrawing roar
Retreating, to the breath
Of the night-wind, down the vast edges drear
And naked shingles of the world.

Ah, love, let us be true
To one another! For the world, which seems
To lie before us like a land of dreams,
So various, so beautiful, so new,
Hath really, neither joy, nor love, nor light,
Nor certitude, nor peace, nor help for pain;
And we are here as on a darkling plain
Swept with confused alarms of struggle and flight
Where ignorant armies clash by night.

The Sound of Leaves by Razia Hussain copy write unknown

War, only war, all twelve
Months of the year. Our eyes
Are cactus plants,
The thorns growing inward
To pierce out
Tenderest nerves.

War, only war.
The orchids on the wall,
The ceiling fan’s whirl overhead,
All suffocate me.
Man sheds civilization
Like a snake skin
And bares the horror
Of his naked face.

North, South, East, West-
No white-horsed hero
From the legends
Will come to rescue us

Each corner of the sky
Is pushed down into darkness,
Into the mush of rotting corpses
Working their poison
On the air. Breath drowns
In this blind sea named time.

Still, sometimes the sounds of leaves
Makes me open my eyes to the sky.
Again, the mind begins to build its nest
Among quiet wings,
The shadow of the shaltree
Falls green
Over my house
Over the smell
Of this warm, wet earth.

In My Black Book by Frank Polite copy write unknown

I
The fresh water goddess, Lake Erie, is dead.

Every day now, more and more of her putrid corpse
Washes up on the sand.

Fish that silvered in her veins, upturned and bloated.
Underwater plants she patiently tended,
Mutant and withered.

Her foaming brains are deposited in Cleveland.
In banks. In coke bottles.

II
I hate to say ‘I remember when’ but I do.
I remember when swimming in her was like crystal gazing.
I remember the autumn afternoon I made my first deep dive as a child

And lost my bathing suit. Down, down in slow motion
Descent, naked, wide-eyed in the wavering light,
Ringing my ears…

I could see clear through
The shimmering of her blue-white veils down
To the bottom,
Her glowing shells, her lake stones like jewels…

And I was held, suspended, in the dance of a goddess.

III
Erie, it’s no use
You slump in thick and listless, like goulash soup.
Scientists say it will take at least
500,000 years before you regenerate, it you do.

O Erie; what are we going to do with you?

We have roped off our old approaches
And posted warning:
‘Severe pollution, no bathing
Permitted, keep at a safe distance”

We have dismantled our carousels
And prancing horses.

And all along your shores
Lanterns burn down to a low uneven glow and go out

In darkness, in silence
You lay out there a great snake goddess dying, dead

And each dawn, you coil the oily slime of our horizon.

IIII
Look, I still keep your address here
In my Black Book:

Lake Goddess Erie
C/o U.S.A.
Western Hemisphere

The Sick Rose by William Blake copy write unknown

O rose thou art sick.
The invisible worm,
That flies in the night
In the howling storm:

Has found our they bed
Of crimson joy.
And his dark secret love
Does thy life destroy.

All Is Vanity by Andreas Gryphils copy write unknown

Whichever way we look, only vanity on earth.
What one man builds today, another destroys tomorrow.
The land where cities stand will soon again be meadows
On them, peasant children, playing among the flocks.
Blooms, luxurious now, are soon trodden down;
What boast defiantly now is just tomorrow’s ashes.
Nothing on earth can last, not of stone or bronze.
Should fortune shine today, hardships soon will thunder.
The fame of lofty deeds vanish like a dream,
Can time’s plaything, man, be expected then to last?
Ah! What is everything dear to us, everything we value?
But wretched triviality, like shadow, dist and wind
Life a flower in a meadow founded once
But nevermore
Yet- not a single person wants to think on the eternal.

The Second Coming by W.B. Yeats copy write unknown

Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer,
Things fall apart: the center cannot hold,
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.

Surely some revelation is at hand
Surely the second coming is at hand.
The second coming! Hardly are those words out
When a vast image out of Spiritus Mundi {Spirits of the world}
Troubles my sight, somewhere in sands of the desert
A shape with lion body and the head of man,
A gaze black and pitiless as the sun,
Imoving its slow thighs, while about it,
Real shadows drops again; but now I know
That twenty centuries of stony sleep
Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,
And what rough beast, its hour come ‘round at last,
Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?

Darkness by Sarya copy write 1999

Darkness is my lover…
Enfolding me in the night.
Darkness is my companion
And it is he, who holds me tight.
Ebony eyes, and caresses
That gives pleasure and delight.
Darkness is my playground
To run and play and scream,
Oh kindred man,
Are you but a dream?
That haunts the evening skies.
And runs away as the sun does rise
I long to bleed and writhe in the
Sweet agony of the pleasure and the pain
Of making love in nights of blood and fire
Burning to feel you and reach
Your darkest desires
Darkness in the silence
That screams within my brain
Because since my eyes saw yours.
I will never be the same
Darkness is the power
Darkness calls out my name

A Prayer for the Stressed

Grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change. The courage to change the things I cannot accept. And the wisdom to hide the bodies of those people I had to kill today because they pissed me off.
And also help me to be careful of the toes that I step on today as… They may be the connected to the arse that I may have to kiss tomorrow. Help me to always give 100% at work… 12% on Monday, 23% on Tuesday, 40% on Wednesday, 20% on Thursday and 5% on Fridays. And help me remember that when I’m having a really bad day and it seems that people are trying to piss me off, that it takes 42 muscles to frown and only 4 to extend my middle finger and tell them to bite me.

Dreams of the Heart by Sarya copy write 1999

Through plastic and wire
A song it play
In the soul of the vampyres
Long miles away
It sang of desire and longing
It played in her heart

Caresses of the soul
Passions whispers
Wondering if solace
Hides in the distance,
Know the others
May not understand
That her body shivers
For the touch of his hand

She will dream this night
And seek his touch
In the realm of astral
To find the one with
Her passion’s mate
Brought by plastic and wire
And a strange twist of fate

There all will happen
That is dreamed of
She will feed him well
Fierily darkly sweet love
He will give her the touch that he has.
Wrapped up inside them
Free now at last

To kiss him so sweetly
And hold him so close
To sleep in his arms
So tender so close
Part they do now
And say their goodbyes
And meet once again
At the end of sunrise.

Angels of darkness softly, somberly commence
To kiss the kindred; clothing their souls in
Dark, delicious ambrosia. The scent from whence
They came is sweet like that of flowing, crimson
Nectar, heating hearts and hungers -- hence
The frantic dance and blood ablaze in one
Inferno. They burn for each other -- their passion rents
The sacred place in twain in wild abandon.

I stand here before you,
Naked and unaware,
My being trembling with each breathe,
I await your approach.

I embrace you in ecstasy,
Our energies merge in
A feverish rapture as the moon
Captures our silhouettes.

As you pull away,
You leave me listless,
Writhing in agony on the
Floor, as my spirit seeps through
My skin into your soul.

My emotional vampire…

Who leaves me in torment,
Until your return when,
I will stand before you,
Naked and awaiting the chance
To be taken again.

My Own Personal Hell by Xibalba1313 copy write 2000

I hate
I hate myself and what I am
I am the beast
I am my own worst enemy
It seems like everything I touch smell of death
I hate being shunned by everyone because of who I am
I can’t hide from myself or from the others.
I hate the lonely existence I lead
I always wonder if it’s worth it to continue
It is the hate that keeps me going on
It keeps me warm
It keeps others away
I can’t let anyone get close
I am afraid I will fall apart
It’s the pain that keeps me held together.

The Pillow Bone by ByteSized copy write 2000

The village is
Hemmed in on all
Sides by the forest
In winter the snow
Is trampled
Red and dull brown
Look up from your fire
At night and there
Will be a half a dozen
White faces pressed
Against the window pane
In summer we nail the
Hearts of vampires dripping
Rosary beads and skin pouches
Full of sharp teeth to
Doors and tree trunks
Scrawl, “Leeches beware” in
Blood and garlic pulp
When I was a child
My sister pinned me
To the floor, sucking at
The flesh of my arm until
Father pulled her off me
Saying it’s nothing
To play at, leading us
Out the barn where
The sow and her litter
Were lying in the straw
With their throats
Ripped out
We were beaten and
Sent to bed without
Supper and sat up
All night tracing our veins
With our fingertips and
Watching for shapes moving
Between the trees
When I was ten
My sister
Ventured too far
Beyond the birch thickets
Three days later smeared
With blood and clay demanding
That mother draw her a bath
Her eyes were as
Yellow as gallowswort
And father drove her away
With an axe
For about a month afterward
We would hear her crying
Out by the woodpile
Father set traps for her
But she was too clever
Once I left her some flowers
Tied up in a blue ribbon
And in the morning there was a
Smooth white finger bone
In its place which I
Sewed up into my pillow.

The Raven by Edgar Allan Poe

Once upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered, weak and weary,
Over many a quaint and curious volume of forgotten lore—
While I nodded, nearly napping, suddenly there came a tapping,
As of some one gently rapping, rapping at my chamber door.
"'Tis some visiter," I muttered, "tapping at my chamber door—
Only this and nothing more."

Ah, distinctly I remember it was in the bleak December;
And each separate dying ember wrought its ghost upon the floor.
Eagerly I wished the morrow;—vainly I had sought to borrow
From my books surcease of sorrow—sorrow for the lost Lenore—
For the rare and radiant maiden whom the angels name Lenore—
Nameless here for evermore.

And the silken, sad, uncertain rustling of each purple curtain
Thrilled me—filled me with fantastic terrors never felt before;
So that now, to still the beating of my heart, I stood repeating
"'Tis some visiter entreating entrance at my chamber door—
Some late visiter entreating entrance at my chamber door;—
This it is and nothing more."

Presently my soul grew stronger; hesitating then no longer,
Sir," said I, "or Madam, truly your forgiveness I implore;
But the fact is I was napping, and so gently you came rapping,
And so faintly you came tapping, tapping at my chamber door,
That I scarce was sure I heard you"—here I opened wide the door;—
Darkness there and nothing more.

Deep into that darkness peering, long I stood there wondering, fearing,
Doubting, dreaming dreams no mortal ever dared to dream before;
But the silence was unbroken, and the stillness gave no token,
And the only word there spoken was the whispered word, "Lenore?"
This I whispered, and an echo murmured back the word, "Lenore!"—
Merely this and nothing more.

Back into the chamber turning, all my soul within me burning,
Soon again I heard a tapping somewhat louder than before.
"Surely," said I, "surely that is something at my window lattice;
Let me see, then, what thereat is, and this mystery explore—
Let my heart be still a moment and this mystery explore;—
'Tis the wind and nothing more!"

Open here I flung the shutter, when, with many a flirt and flutter,
In there stepped a stately Raven of the saintly days of yore;
Not the least obeisance made he; not a minute stopped or stayed he;
But, with mien of lord or lady, perched above my chamber door—
Perched upon a bust of Pallas just above my chamber door—
Perched, and sat, and nothing more.

Then this ebony bird beguiling my sad fancy into smiling,
By the grave and stern decorum of the countenance it wore,
"Though thy crest be shorn and shaven, thou," I said, "art sure no craven,
Ghastly grim and ancient Raven wandering from the Nightly shore—
Tell me what thy lordly name is on the Night's Plutonian shore!"
Quoth the Raven "Nevermore."

Much I marvelled this ungainly fowl to hear discourse so plainly,
Though its answer little meaning--little relevancy bore;
For we cannot help agreeing that no living human being
Ever yet was blessed with seeing bird above his chamber door—
Bird or beast upon the sculptured bust above his chamber door,
With such name as "Nevermore."

But the Raven, sitting lonely on the placid bust, spoke only
That one word, as if his soul in that one word he did outpour.
Nothing farther then he uttered—not a feather then he fluttered—
Till I scarcely more than muttered "Other friends have flown before—
On the morrow he will leave me, as my Hopes have flown before."
Then the bird said "Nevermore."

Startled at the stillness broken by reply so aptly spoken,
"Doubtless," said I, "what it utters is its only stock and store
Caught from some unhappy master whom unmerciful Disaster
Followed fast and followed faster till his songs one burden bore--
Till the dirges of his Hope that melancholy burden bore
Of 'Never—nevermore'."

But the Raven still beguiling all my fancy into smiling,
Straight I wheeled a cushioned seat in front of bird, and bust and door;
Then, upon the velvet sinking, I betook myself to linking
Fancy unto fancy, thinking what this ominous bird of yore—
What this grim, ungainly, ghastly, gaunt, and ominous bird of yore
Meant in croaking "Nevermore."

This I sat engaged in guessing, but no syllable expressing
To the fowl whose fiery eyes now burned into my bosom's core;
This and more I sat divining, with my head at ease reclining
On the cushion's velvet lining that the lamp-light gloated o'er,
But whose velvet-violet lining with the lamp-light gloating o'er,
She shall press, ah, nevermore!

Then, methought, the air grew denser, perfumed from an unseen censer
Swung by Seraphim whose foot-falls tinkled on the tufted floor.
"Wretch," I cried, "thy God hath lent thee--by these angels he hath sent thee
Respite—respite and nepenthe from thy memories of Lenore;
Quaff, oh quaff this kind nepenthe and forget this lost Lenore!"
Quoth the Raven "Nevermore."

"Prophet!" said I, "thing of evil!—prophet still, if bird or devil!—
Whether Tempter sent, or whether tempest tossed thee here ashore,
Desolate yet all undaunted, on this desert land enchanted—
On this home by Horror haunted—tell me truly, I implore—
Is there—is there balm in Gilead?—tell me—tell me, I implore!"
Quoth the Raven "Nevermore."

"Prophet!" said I, "thing of evil!—prophet still, if bird or devil!
By that Heaven that bends above us—by that God we both adore—
Tell this soul with sorrow laden if, within the distant Aidenn,
It shall clasp a sainted maiden whom the angels name Lenore—
Clasp a rare and radiant maiden whom the angels name Lenore."
Quoth the Raven "Nevermore."

"Be that word our sign of parting, bird or fiend!" I shrieked, upstarting—
"Get thee back into the tempest and the Night's Plutonian shore!
Leave no black plume as a token of that lie thy soul hath spoken!
Leave my loneliness unbroken!—quit the bust above my door!
Take thy beak from out my heart, and take thy form from off my door!"
Quoth the Raven "Nevermore."

And the Raven, never flitting, still is sitting, still is sitting
On the pallid bust of Pallas just above my chamber door;
And his eyes have all the seeming of a demon's that is dreaming,
And the lamp-light o'er him streaming throws his shadow on the floor;
And my soul from out that shadow that lies floating on the floor
Shall be lifted—nevermore!

The Road not Taken by Robert Frost

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;
Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,
And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.
I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I--
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.

The Hollow Men By T. S. Eliot

Mistah Kurtz--he dead
A penny for the Old Guy

We are the hollow men
We are the stuffed men
Leaning together
Headpiece filled with straw.
Alas!
Our dried voices, when
We whisper together
Are quiet and meaningless
As wind in dry grass
Or rats' feet over broken glass
In our dry cellar

Those who have crossed
With direct eyes, to death's
Other Kingdom
Remember us-if at all-not as lost
Violent souls, but only
As the hollow men
The stuffed men.

Eyes I dare not meet in dreams
In death's dream kingdom
These do not appear;
There, the eyes are
Sunlight on a broken column
There is a tree swinging
And voices are
In the wind's singing
More distant and more solemn
Than a fading star.